The Chains of Bondage
by Lacrea Moonlight
Summary: A young woman found in Central Park, brutally tortured and barely alive, lead the Detectives of the SVU squad to a horrible truth. No pairings at this time.
1. The Finding

Disclaimer: I do not own Law & Order: SVU. It belongs to Dick Wolf and everyone else who produces it and makes it and everything else. If I did own it, I'd be filthy rich and I wouldn't be writing fanfiction; I'd just be putting everything in the episodes.

The Chains of Bondage

It was a crisp Sunday morning. There seemed nothing unusual about it as a woman in her mid-thirties and a ten-year-old boy walked down the street towards Central Park. The boy strained as he clung to the leash of a six-month-old Saint Bernard which pulled and nearly dragged the kid down the street.

"Danny, I swear to God. Why did you have to get _that_ dog? Why couldn't you get something smaller and more manageable? Like a Shih-Tzu or a Terrier? There should be a law against drooling so much, especially all over my nice carpet and couches," the mother stated in an irritated voice. The cool morning made her pull her jacket closer to her body. Danny gave a lopsided grin as he adjusted his grip and tried to keep the dog from running off.

"Aw, Mom! Rocky isn't that bad," he replied with a grunt. Even for being so young, the dog was large and strong. Suddenly, the boy lost his grip on the leash and Rocky took off running into the brush. Crying the dog's name, Danny ran off after him and the mother, groaning as though this had happened far too many times already began to run as well. It wasn't long before she caught up with the both of them. Rocky was sniffing furiously at something underneath the cover of a bush while Danny was trying to pull him away. The Saint Bernard chomped down on something and the mother grabbed the leash to help pull him back.

As she pulled, she frowned as she noticed what the dog held tightly to had come with him. Finally, the large puppy let go and Danny froze, eyes wide as the boy's mother gave the dog a quick swat its butt.

"Mom..." he started.

"Danny, you wanted this dog and you are the one that has to teach it to quit running off like this!" she snapped as she checked to make sure the leash was still attached to the collar.

"Mom..." he began again.

"And don't give me that, 'oh Mom, I promise I'll start taking care of him' routine; I think I've heard it enough," she continued, as if she didn't hear him.

"MOM!" he cried, tugging her coat sleeve and pointing at the object that Rocky had pulled from the bush. She finally looked, muttering an annoyed 'what!' She gasped and grabbed her son's hand pulling him and the dog away. The dog had pulled a human hand from the bush... and it was attached to a shaking, bloody and groaning woman.

"Oh, my God."

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_Bellevue Hospital_

_Emergency Room_

_Monday, October 9th_

Two detectives, one male and one female entered the sliding doors of the hospital. The man was dressed in a suit with a matching blue tie, his warm coat open at the top. The woman was dressed in black slacks and a mauve button-down shirt tucked in at the hem wearing her own nice coat, also open. The stepped up to the nurse's station and waved their badges at the woman behind the counter.

"I'm Detective Elliot Stabler, this is Detective Olivia Benson. We're here about the woman found in the park?" the man spoke with authority. The nurse nodded and pointed out a man to her left.

"You'll want to talk to Dr. Gregory Parker. He's the attending and took her case when EMS brought her in."

Quickly, Benson and Stabler walked over to the smartly dressed man, a stethoscope in place around his neck as most people would expect. He was signing a chart as they came up to him. He wasn't a remarkable looking man, just about a head shorter than Elliot with brown eyes and slicked back hair that had long ago turned to salt and pepper in color. He looked up when he heard a throat being cleared and put the chart down the moment he saw the badges.

"Detectives Stabler and Benson," Elliot announced.

"You're here about the Jane Doe in the park?"

"Yeah. What is her condition?" Benson asked. Dr. Parker motioned for them to follow. He led them to the ICU and into a room with a clear view of the nurse's station outside. Even though they saw things like this every day, it still came as a shock to the two officers what the woman's condition was. She looked small and fragile against the white sheets, multiple tubes in her body and one taped down her throat. There were so many bruises covering her face that they couldn't even hope to get a positive identification until her face cleared up. Her arms were worse, covered in bruises, cuts and cigarette burns. They could only imagine what the rest of her body looked like. The only thing that they could easily identify her by was the limp red dyed curly hair that lay fanned out against the pillows and the tan tint of what little flesh was left unmarred.

"As you can see, she's in bad shape. When paramedics brought her in, her clothes were in shreds. We did a rape kit when we realized that her panties were hanging off one of her ankles. We almost lost her twice to cardiac arrest on the table; she had internal bleeding from six stab wounds to the abdomen and two in the chest," Parker rambled as they stared at the victim.

"Can you give us a call when she wakes up or if her condition changes?" Elliot asked, pulling out a card.

"I'm sorry, Detective, but the chances of her waking up are very slim. She's in a coma and there is very little hope for her waking up. I think the trauma to her body and the internal bleeding deprived her brain of blood; unless some kind of miracle happens, she's going to be like this for a long time, maybe the rest of her life," the doctor continued.

"Thank you. Please, keep us informed," Olivia said as she and Elliot turned and left. As they walked through the hospital back to their car, Olivia could almost smell the rage that came off her partner in waves.

"That woman wasn't beaten; she was tortured."

The statement mirrored what was running through her mind.

"Munch and Fin covering the scene?" She asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah; they're canvassing the park. She was found stuffed underneath a bush by a kid, his mom and his dog."

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_Central Park_

_Crime Scene_

_Monday, October 9th_

A very slim older man with grey hair wearing a suit that made him look even thinner knelt down slightly. He wore a pair of square sunglasses to cover his slightly squinting eyes as he stared at the bloody ground before him. He'd interviewed the mother and the kid an hour before and had canvassed the park in search of a witness. CSU had gone through every inch of this particular part of Central Park; there was a lot of evidence they'd have to comb through before they found something viable since it hadn't rained in more than a week. The gentleman, by the name of John Munch, looked over to his partner. Odafin "Fin" Tutuola was not too far away, still interviewing a few people. Munch returned his attention to the bush he was kneeling by.

The blood was slightly dried and there were pieces of clothing that had been photographed and labeled with numbers. A uniformed officer approached him from the side with an evidence bag.

"Detective, I think I found something."

"What is it?" he asked as he stood up slightly awkwardly.

"We found a rock and a branch with pieces of human tissue and blood on them. It's possible that the victim was beaten with them before she was dumped here. We're going to send them to the lab to confirm that the tissue on it belongs to the victim."

"Good. Has anything been found that can identify the victim? Purse, driver's license, passport or college ID?"

"Nothing yet. We've gone through this part of the park but we still have the rest to cover."

"Munch!" He turned around to see Fin waving him to come over. Nodding to the officer, he went to his partner with a slight frown on his face.

"Anything?"

"Nothing. No one saw a damn thing."

"Any news on our Jane Doe?"

"Yeah. She's in a coma; she probably won't wake up."

"Do they know if she was raped?"

"Not yet; they did a rape kit at the hospital after they got her stable. Sent it to the lab to see if there are any fluids besides blood."

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Okay, everyone. This is my first Law & Order: SVU fic, so please... be honest and harsh if needed. I've been watching the show for nearly three years now but I'm not sure if I'm writing the characters in a way to do them honor or realistic. So please, any input is very much appreciated and will be put to good use. Flames are valued as much as praise!


	2. The Awakening

Disclaimer: I do not own Law & Order: SVU. It belongs to Dick Wolf and everyone else who produces it and makes it and everything else. If I did own it, I'd be filthy rich and I wouldn't be writing fanfiction; I'd just be putting everything in the episodes.

**_who wants to know? – A note for the future: the word 'ramble' does not have any relation to words meaning 'shaken' or 'distraught'. The definition is as follows for the specific way that I used it: "Ramble – to talk or write in a discursive, aimless way." Meaning, the guy was talking just to talk; the information was useful but he was still aimless in the way he presented the information. Otherwise, thank you for the review and I hope that you enjoy this story as it progresses. I certainly hope I'm doing the characters justice._**

The Chains of Bondage

_SVU Squad Room_

_October 13th_

Elliot and Olivia were sitting at their desk, reviewing the Jane Doe case as they sipped their morning coffees. The look on Elliot's face was one of restraint as he read through the report and looked at the photos of the woman, still lying in the ICU at Bellevue. He had seen her with his own eyes and he still couldn't believe the damage that had been caused. He was still gripping the file when Captain Donald Cragen, an older balding man who was slightly burly around the middle, walked up to their joined desks and pointed to the door as he spoke.

"Warner's got some news on that rape kit. She says she's got something big to show you," he said, his face lined permanently with a frown.

"We're on our way, Captain," Elliot said as he waived Olivia to follow him. As they walked outside, she could see the rage boiling inside him as he tugged on his suit jacket and coat. He always got like this when it was a case as bad as this one seemed. Come to think of it, he took every case personally, like it was an attack on him and not the victim. It was something that made her admire him, though she was sure he wouldn't want to hear that.

"Something on your mind?" she asked as she sat in the driver's seat.

"I just want to catch the son of a bitch that did this," he replied quietly, his tone strained. Nodding her agreement, she turned the engine.

--------

They arrived at the coroner's office and stepped through the doors to see her in the beginnings of an autopsy from another case. She looked up and smiled slightly in greeting. She was a beautiful woman with brown skin and her long, tightly curled hair tied into a bun. Melinda Warner took off her gloves and tossed them in a trashcan.

"You won't believe what I found in the samples. There were ten different types of DNA both inside and on the victim. Some of it had her own blood mixed in. The rape kit the hospital did found bruising to the vaginal walls and a torn hymen. They also examined her mouth and found that she skin and blood in her mouth. We tested it and it wasn't hers," she started without preamble.

"So we've got something to look for when we find some suspects," Olivia commented.

"What about the semen?" Elliot asked.

"Well, when I finished identifying how many different types of semen there were, I had them run through the database. We got a hit on one of them," she said with a satisfied smile on her face. She went to the computer and pulled up a picture. Elliot and Olivia shared a look; they had busted this perp before.

As they were leaving the building, Elliot's cell phone rang and he answered, "Stabler." A deep frown covered his face as he looked at his questioning partner.

--------

Munch and Fin were just coming into the squad room, each carrying a small bag stamped with the name of a local carry-out restaurant when the phone on Munch's desk rang. He took off his hat before he answered, "Detective Munch."

Fin barely glanced over as he sat at his desk, pulled a hamburger with everything on it out, and began to eat it hungrily. He frowned slightly as his partner began to write something down on his pad. His frown began to get deeper when he saw Munch put his hat and gloves back on, a most certain cue for him to do the same. As he was putting his lunch back into his bag, he finally asked the question he had hoped John would answer before he had to ask it.

"Where are we going?"

Munch picked up his lunch and the keys to the car as he said, "That was Elliot. Warner was able to identify one of the rapists on the Jane Doe case; she ran the DNA against the database and we're going to pick him up."

"Where are those two going, then?"

"Bellevue. Apparently, the doctor was a little premature in his diagnosis."

--------

Elliot and Olivia frowned as the doctor led them to the woman's room. This doctor was different than the one that they had spoken to the first time; her name was Amelia Henderson. She was a short, thin woman in her late 40's. The woman was still in the ICU but the tube that had previously been taped into her mouth had been removed.

"We noticed about an hour ago that her brainwave patterns had been steadily improving. We did a tox screen when she first came in to see if there were any opiates in her bloodstream and the original blood sample was mixed up with another. It took us a little while to verify that the mixed up sample was hers but we found evidence that she was given sodium thiopental in a very high dose," Dr. Henderson said as they reached the door of the room.

"Sodium thiopental? What is that?" Olivia asked.

"It's also known as sodium pentothal. It's a barbiturate generally used as anesthesia or for inducing a coma state when the brain swells. In some states, it's actually used to euthanatize prisoners. The levels we found in her system could have killed her."

"Is her system clear of it?" Elliot continued.

"Not quite yet. Sometimes the side effects can last up to 36 hours. However, she is lucid enough to talk."

"Why didn't the previous doctor catch this? Surely there were signs that the coma wasn't natural?"

"Sometimes there are signs and sometimes it's indistinguishable from a natural one. She's lucky to be alive."

They nodded their thanks to Dr. Henderson and then entered the room. The woman's face was still covered in bruises. The thought that someone had used it as a punching bag crossed Olivia's mind as she took a seat next to the bed. The redhead's lips were cracked to the point of a little bleeding and she kept moving her head slightly back and forth on the pillow. Her bright green eyes seemed to be in a state of permanent fluttering and it took several minutes for the two detectives to get her to focus on one of them.

"What happened? Where am I?" she asked in a very slurred manner, her voice cracking. She licked her lips thirstily and Elliot asked a passing nurse for some water and a straw.

"You're in the hospital. Can you tell me your name?" Olivia asked as her partner handed her the water and she brought it forward for the woman who drank slowly. Her mouth didn't quite close all the way around the straw; water dripped down her chin and onto her hospital gown.

It took a long moment before the woman responded. She blinked her eyes as her mind tried to process the words being spoken to her.

"My name is Fiona Quinn... How did I get here?" she asked slowly.

"You were found in Central Park four days ago. Do you remember how you got there?" Olivia's words were gentle as she allowed her to sip from the water again. Fiona frowned.

"Central Park? Where am I?" the bruised woman asked with a slightly panicked look on her face. Olivia and Elliot exchanged a glance before he answered.

"New York City. Why?"

"New York? My god..." she whispered. Elliot got a chair and sat down next to Olivia with a frown.

"Where do you remember being before you woke up here?" he asked gently. Fiona's eyes glazed over as she continued to struggle with understanding and replying to what they asked.

"I was home. I live in Pikes Peak, Colorado... I... I can't remember anymore; it's all fuzzy..." she said very slowly. Olivia was about to ask another question when a nurse popped her head in and informed them that the patient needed more rest before they could continue.

They gently told the young woman to rest and that they would be back as they got up. Olivia set the cup of water on the table next to her and gave a tight smile before she left.

"We need to contact the police in," Elliot paused as he looked at the pad he'd been writing on during the conversation, "Pikes Peak, Colorado and find out if she's been reported missing."

"Then we need to contact her family there, see if they can come up here. Maybe they can give us names of anyone who might have a grudge against her," Olivia replied as she pulled out the keys to the car.

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Okay, everyone. This is my first Law & Order: SVU fic, so please... be honest and harsh if needed. I've been watching the show for nearly three years now but I'm not sure if I'm writing the characters in a way to do them honor or realistic. So please, any input is very much appreciated and will be put to good use. Flames are valued as much as praise!

By the way, Pikes Peak, Colorado does exist; in order to make this story as realistic as possible, I have been doing research on everything that I do as I write the story for as much accuracy as possible. Keep in mind that I have no experience in any of this stuff.

Sodium thiopental – better known as sodium pentothal, is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate general anesthetic. Uses are as follows:

Anesthesia

Medical-induced comas

Euthanasia

Lethal injection

Truth Serum

Psychiatry

This information was obtained on a website maintained and updated by people of various backgrounds, using information found in books and other sources. Visit http://en. for further information.


	3. Author's Note

Author's Note:

Hi everyone! I know I haven't updated anything on this site in a really long time, so I need your input on something. I've decided that I'm going to take some of my stories down. You all get to decide what stays and what goes. Now, I know that there are lots of stories I've written that I haven't updated in forever; this is the reason why I'm taking some down. If people are still interested in certain stories, I'll keep them up and concentrate on those. For the stories that people have lost interest in, I'll take them down.

My one-shots will stay up since there really is no need to make up new chapters. These include the song fics. But there's a catch. If you want a particular fic to stay up and be updated, you MUST review for that fic. If I receive no reviews for that fic, I'm taking it down and putting it into storage until I finish the ones that are in the most demand. If there is a fic you like but think could be better, tell me what you think needs to be changed and I'll be more than happy to make those changes if I think it jives with the story line I had in mind.

If you want a fic to stay up, the minimum is 15 reviews for that fic. I'd appreciate it if the same people didn't review it 15 times just to keep it. I'm hoping that more than just one person likes my work.

This may not seem fair to some people, but please understand this: I posted a chapter for one of my stories a little while ago and absolutely NO ONE reviewed. It brought my spirits down and made me think that no one wanted to read it. So, after some careful thought, I have made this decision. If no one reviews and says they want the stories to be kept, I'll take down all of my unfinished fics and take my time reworking them. I'll even get a Beta, if one will have me, to tell me what needs to be improved. I'm not above asking for help when I need it.

So, please, if you want a certain story that you previously liked to be kept up and worked on, I ask a minimum of 15 reviews. 20 would be better, but I think 15 is fair. I will give this one week. If I don't get any reviews for any of the stories I post this note on, I'll assume that they all need to come down. I'll find some way to save the reviews that I've already gotten for them and then take the story down.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Lacrea Moonlight


	4. Author's Note 2

Author's Note 2.0

Okay, so far I've gotten 1 _**New Life**_, 1 _**Fallen Angel**_ and 2 _**Shadows in the Night**_. As I said in the previous note posted just this past Sunday, I will take stock of how many people want me to keep these stories up. As I recall, I posted the previous note on six or seven multi-chapter stories. If there aren't 10-15 reviews on those stories **EACH** with the author's note saying to keep or get rid of the stories, I will take them all down or, as one person I know of has encouraged me to do, I will put them on hiatus until I feel that people are ready for me to update them and I will work on other things.

What this means to you, is that when I not only feel that people will read the chapters, but also review them, I will begin posting again for these stories. Given that before I said I'd take them down, I've reconsidered that; I would love it if people would just review. Even if it's to tell me that they think my story is crap and needs better work done on it, needs to be re-written for a more adult audience's tastes. I really don't care if I get flames! Because flames are just as helpful as a rave review that says my fic is wonderful. Flames help me to do better and raves give me a bit of an ego boost that I sometimes need.

Just, please, understand that it is hurtful to me when people read and don't even bother to review. Perhaps it is because some of them think that some one else will review and that will be enough. I'm not saying that everyone who reads my fics should review, although in a perfect world that's probably what would happen. However, this is not a perfect world and I don't expect people to review every chapter, every time. Just one every once in a while would make me happy.

Now that I've gotten that little rant out of the way, as I said, Sunday is the last day to tell me what you want. At 11:59 EST, I will either take fics down or I will post a note stating that the story is on hiatus for X amount of time. I haven't decided what I'm going to do as of yet, but talking to this one person I've mentioned previously in this note has me thinking that if I leave the fics on hiatus up for long enough and then come back with a revised version of it, that might be better than just deleting it entirely.

If you would like me to continue with a story, **PLEASE** review! It is, as of now, the only way you will get to see what happens with these characters. I do have a roadmap of where I want to go with these stories, especially with _**Shadows in the Night**_.

Thank you to all of my loyal readers for reading this and thank you to any new ones.

Lacrea Moonlight


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